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Join the Society Officers Committee (SOC), Tuesday @ 4:00 p.m. EDT, for an open discussion on the 2014 AIBD Membership Drive. The theme is member-get-a-member for a membership drive kicking off April 1st. AIBD’s Eastern District Director, North Carolina Society President and from the Membership Committee, Kevin Holdridge will introduce the topic followed by a power point presentation given by National’s Executive Director Steve Mickley.

The SOC has been commissioned by the AIBD Board of Directors to act as a forum to allow and benefit from mutual experiences and advise officers. This Committee provides a means of communication between State Societies, the Board and the National Office, with a focus on helping mentor leadership.

To register for the meeting using the AIBD GoToWebinar platform, CLICK HERE.

A team of six innovative young professionals gathered, along with more than 140 others, during the AEC Hackathon 1.1 at the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA and invented a piece of “smart” wearable technology using a common hard hat. Their efforts over the two day hackathon earned them $350 of the total $700 of cash prizes available.

“Hard hats are a ubiquitous piece of safety equipment on every major job site. The first step in Wearable Technology for construction, therefore, should consider the hard hat as a “Smart” improvement.” team members pointed out during their presentation to the AEC Hackathon audience and judges yesterday. “Our project explored this potential by applying inexpensive, off-the-shelf hardware to hard hats to create a development environment for Wearable Technology in Construction.”

In this particular example of Wearable Technology, team HackMyHardHat applied temperature and humidity sensors, along with video capture, to hard hats. Construction is a huge industry ($776 billion in 2011 with 9.1 million workers). “That which is measured, improves.” was their inspiration. By measuring these factors and stresses, we can improve awareness and productivity of workers.

AIBD executives Steve Mickley and David Pillsbury were on hand to witness this innovation along with the others invented during the weekend event. Such as, Hack-E a mobile autonomous sensor reading device designed to assist facility managers, a new construction scheduling dashboard, object recognition software, digital fabrication tools and more.

A collaborative arrangement has been signed between the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT) and the American Institute of Building Designers (AIBD) to cooperate on matters relating to their respective disciplines.

The objectives of the arrangement are to:

develop arrangements to facilitate members of each institute to join the other institute;

identify mechanisms within both organizations that could be transferable to assist with education, best practice, technical and certification activities where either organization has developed expertise;

identify joint efforts for both organizations to foster professionalism through education, best practice, technical, certification, public image and performance standards; and

identify joint efforts for both organizations to foster cooperation within allied professional bodies, government authorities and others.

Speaking of the collaboration, Karl Grace, President of CIAT said ‘I’m delighted to see this collaborative arrangement in place. It will not only help to support members of both Institutes but also recognizes our disciplines equally within America and the UK. The timing of this arrangement is opportune as we have just set-up a Centre for The Americas. This is indeed an exciting time for the development of CIAT internationally.’

AIBD President, Varina Wooster, expressed her pleasure with the newly announced collaboration: “After some months of conversation between AIBD and CIAT, we have formalized a working relationship between the two professional organizations that extends hands across the ocean in recognition of mutually shared goals and interests.”

WikiHouse, a non-profit project, is developing hardware and software which is open and shared in the commons, owned by everyone. More specifically, WikiHouse is an open source construction set. The aim is to allow anyone to design, download and print CNC-milled houses and components which can be assembled with minimal formal skill or training.

“I subscribe to Popular Science magazine and there was an interesting article on WikiHouse.” says Professional member John Wagner (FL). “It’s about how housing is being created from cut-out pieces of plywood from models you get off their website and put into Sketchup. Could this change the way housing is built in the future?”

Check out some of the downloadable templates, watch videos and learn more about CNC-milling by visiting the WikiHouse website: http://www.wikihouse.cc/.

Registration is now open for the AIBD Convention & iCORD conference is July 29 – August 1, 2014, in Columbus, Ohio: www.AIBDconvention.com

Looking for peek at Ohio’s countryside as part of your convention planning? Ohio’s Tuscarawas and Holmes county area, only an hour and a half away from Columbus, could be the ticket. Rich in Amish farmlands and old fashioned hospitality, these rural counties offer a look at the farms, people and ways that helped make Ohio the mainstay of Midwest agriculture…